I struggled
with the idea of touching politics. A place I don’t want to go. Then I
remembered a day in the life of my little 6-year-old daughter.
#The Sound
of Music movie credits
had rolled, the theater lights came on, the Von Trapp family had hiked over the
alps to escape Germany and to enter Switzerland.
My little
daughter turned to me and asked:
“Would we be that brave?”
I
don’t know.
- I know it’s easier to let the powers that be decide our fate than to choose it for ourselves.
- I know that it’s easier to keep quiet than to speak up.
- I know it’s easier to laugh at racial slurs that to speak against them.
- I know it’s easier to go into our own world, to study being successful, or how to be happy than it is to care for those who need a leg up.
- I know it’s easier to write or read 150-character Tweet, which seems to run public thought than to delve into the subject at depth.
- I know it’s easier to watch the news, to know they are skewed, but to let them permeate our brains anyway.
- I know that belief is stronger than evidence.
- I know that humans, like animals, have a strong territorial instinct, a fear strangers, and anyone different from them, and that overcoming that bias takes work.
- I know that people fear what they can’t understand and are willing to be taken care of.
I know that the human
spirit is indomitable if
fanned.
I know that people have an instinct to run to the rescue.
I know that beneath layers of injustice, injury,
and persecution can come a person
of power and influence.
I know that people want to love one another if
given half a chance.
These people exist--don't forget it.
PPS.
The Sound of Music was initially released to terrible reviews who called
it too saccharine and then the film went on to become one of the all-time
best-loved movies winning 12 Academy awards, with the indomitable Julie Andrews
pulling out all stops.
Who
doesn’t love music, dance, love, exquisite scenery, and courage? I saw myself
as Mother Superior singing “Climb Every Mountain,“ but I didn’t have the voice
or range of Patrica Neway, but neither did Peggy Wood who played the part. (Nor
was I her age when the movie was made.)
I
don’t care that the story varies from the true Von Trapp family, it’s a
heart-warming story, and Hollywood takes license when a film is “Inspired-by.”
The
true Von Trapp family.
